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. 2011 Apr;1(1):43-52.
doi: 10.5750/ijpcm.v1i1.21.

Person-centered Therapeutics

C Robert Cloninger  1 , Kevin M Cloninger  2
Affiliations

Person-centered Therapeutics

C Robert Cloninger et al. Int J Pers Cent Med. 2011 Apr.

Abstract

A clinician's effectiveness in treatment depends substantially on his or her attitude toward -- and understanding of -- the patient as a person endowed with self-awareness and the will to direct his or her own future. The assessment of personality in the therapeutic encounter is a crucial foundation for forming an effective working alliance with shared goals. Helping a person to reflect on their personality provides a mirror image of their strengths and weaknesses in adapting to life's many challenges. The Temperament and Character Inventory (TCI) provides an effective way to describe personality thoroughly and to predict both the positive and negative aspects of health. Strengths and weaknesses in TCI personality traits allow strong predictions of individual differences of all aspects of well-being. Diverse therapeutic techniques, such as diet, exercise, mood self-regulation, meditation, or acts of kindness, influence health and personality development in ways that are largely indistinguishable from one another or from effective allopathic treatments. Hence the development of well-being appears to be the result of activating a synergistic set of mechanisms of well-being, which are expressed as fuller functioning, plasticity, and virtue in adapting to life's challenges.

Keywords: Treatment; health promotion; person-centered therapy; personality; personhood; well-being.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Psychobiological Model of Temperament and Character (Reproduced with permission of Washington University Center for Well-Being)
Figure 2
Figure 2
The TCI Temperament Cube: Descriptors of different configurations of TCI Harm Avoidance, Novelty Seeking, and Reward Dependence (reproduced with permission of the Washington University Center for Well-Being)
Figure 3
Figure 3
The Character Cube (reproduced with permission of the Washington University Center for Well-Being)
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

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    1. Cloninger CR. The science of well-being: an integrated approach to mental health and its disorders. World Psychiatry. 2006;5(2):71–6. - PMC - PubMed

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